Shoeberts frowned after the first test of of Luke's progress, which only deepened as the tests went on. Luke had managed a constant rate on his 100 pound bench presses over 30 minutes, before he started showing signs of fatigue, slowing his rate. At the end of the first test, he'd managed 47 minutes of continuous bench presses, a full 13 minutes less than Shoeberts predicted. Other shows of endurance were similarly below where Shoeberts had predicted.
"You didn't slack off or try to add in your own exercises, did you?" Shoeberts asked. "You don't strike me as someone to do that, from our limited contact so far."
"Closest thing I did was a bit of recreational freerunning," Luke responded. "Nothing intense, just stuff I could have done - with a lot more effort than I can now - even before beginning my training with you."
"Hm. Arms up, above your head," Shoeberts commanded. When Luke obeyed, Shoeberts massages his arm muscles a bit. "Arms limp," another set of massages. "Flex," and another. "Arms back up," and another. He repeated similar commands to lightly engage, disengage, flex, and lightly engage Luke's various muscles before feeling them in each stage.
"What was that all about?" Luke asked when it was clear there was no more Shoeberts would have him do.
Shoeberts did not respond instantly, standing in thought for a few seconds before saying, "Checking how your muscles have responded more directly. Usually, just seeing the results of the training is enough, but I wasn't really sure. Now I am, you need a bit of a different diet. Whatever it is about your DNA that makes you you requires you have a slightly different diet when building slow-twitch muscles. Who knows exactly why, but give me a few minutes to write up the revision."
"Sounds good to me," Luke said. As he waited and Shoeberts typed, Blood of Heroes played in the background.
Near the end of the song, Shoeberts looked up and said, "I'm not sure how long it will take to publish, but I was able to actually finish my book in time. It should be coming out soon; you can pick up a copy and, hopefully, learn how to adjust your diet and training regimen yourself."
Luke was slightly confused by the phrasing of Shoeberts's statement, but leaving that alone for now. He then asked, "You sure I can't extend our deal a few weeks? I have the money for another few weeks before I'd have to start going into my emergency buffer."
"No. I won't even be here Thursday, let alone in another three weeks."
Luke took a couple moments to process the implications of that statement. He realized what he meant by "in time."
"You're going to the arena some time in the next two days?"
"Yep. You're my last client before I go. I'm going to spend these last couple days with my family. Hopefully, the publication of my book goes smoothly and I don't need to babysit it in my last couple days on earth."
"Make them work for it," Luke said. "Every second counts."
"Luke, I'm an old man at this point. I can't even use magic, which would make my chances way higher. I doubt I'll even escape whatever bindings the fraxion decides to use, let alone stall for any significant amount of time."
"You're in the best shape I've ever seen anyone in their 70s be. Heck, you're in better shape than at least 80% of people I've watched in the arena. Break a finger, yank off an armor plating, anything."
"Oh, I don't plan to go down without trying, but I'm tempering your expectations. Best I expect to do is escape a lethal blow in the first second and then die to the second blow. I'll get you that extra singular second, make use of it."
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Luke checked the first page of the death list every few minutes, looking for Shoeberts's name, while he went through his exercises. As his trainer said, he might as well make use of the time he's able to buy, however short, so he didn't plan to stop his training to mourn. Eventually, Shoeberts made it near the top and Luke watched a few people get the standard strap and decap' treatment, as people had taken to calling it on the internet.
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The current fraxion was using raw telekinesis to hold people still. The most deadly version, though it tended to make the fraxion run through their magic capacity more quickly than fire and forget methods like rock tombs, vines, ropes, or any other conjured object. Those could be escaped, be it through brute strength, using speed to escape the bind before it was put in place, or wriggling out using imperfections in the fraxion's technique. Telekinesis had to be broken through with raw strength, the degree of which was needed was higher than the vast majority of humanity could bring to bear, and could be actively countered in real-time, unlike conjured objects, which had a static strength.
Basically, Shoeberts had no chance.
Maybe in his prime, Shoeberts could have reasonably escaped the telekinesis to avoid an immediately lethal blow. He was an old man now. The fight ended in one blow, the fraxion decapitating Shoeberts in a single swipe of its arm. Shoeberts struggled, probably making the fraxion use more magic on its telekinesis than it desired for a single human, but it had no outward effect. No escaping immediate death, no making his opponent use so much magic they overdrew their magic capacity.
Just brutal death.
Exactly like the vast, vast majority of people.
This wasn't the first time Luke had watched someone he knew die without being able to put up a fight, and he doubted it would be the last. Watching Jake put up as good of a fight as he had was a rare sight, even rarer because he personally knew the Sunday Blaster, as a few Reddit threads had taken to calling him for all of 20 minutes before forgetting he so much as existed.
To almost every human being, it was just some old guy dying. Just another body for the pile, another nameless face dead in a matter of seconds.
To his family, it was their father, their brother, their husband, ripped away, never to make a joke or enjoy conversation with again. A life taken for no discernible reason than maybe the excitement of the gods.
To his friends, it was someone they would never get to grab a drink or enjoy shared hobbies together with ever again. Not because they'd drifted apart or had a falling out over some conflict, but simply some sick joke played on humanity and fraxions alike by beings claiming to be gods.
Luke continued his training through all these thoughts. But also, in the few fractions of a second it took him to wordlessly have these thoughts, he noticed that the next in line hadn't appeared as fast as is normal after a decapitation. Not by escaping a fatal blow, but by raw determination, Shoeberts remained conscious for little more than a second and a half after his head was separated from his body, enough of a feat to keep whatever magic the gods used to run their sick arena from moving on to the next challenger.
It wasn't even a full two seconds, but Shoeberts made good on his word.
He'd successfully bought the world an extra second more than an average old man would have.
Once the next participant entered the frame, Luke closed the arena feed. He didn't stop training throughout that brief exchange, even if he felt bad for not doing so. Shoeberts had fought for that extra second, he wasn't going to waste more than that grieving his death.
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28 days after his passing, Luke saw Shoeberts's book had finally been published. In it, a few people were called out by name as people Shoeberts had high hopes in for their future ability in the arena. Most of the names he didn't know, but there was one he knew quite well. Luke himself.
He used the knowledge passed along by his physical training mentor to enhance his diet and training to be a bit more efficient. He obviously wasn't as good as the old man himself, and he made sure to actually measure the changes he'd made to make sure he didn't disrupt his own growth to any noticeable degree, but the knowledge was valuable. Not only to him, but to anyone who picked up the book and took its contents seriously.
Directly being under the man himself for only a month and a half, Luke knew the value of the information in the book. If even one more person could take his words as a starting point and expand them beyond what even Shoeberts was capable of, Luke believed humanity would have a bright future.
He was determined to personally see to it that those who had the capability for such a feat would live long enough to walk that path.
"I can, and I will," he muttered to himself. Something he started doing as a way to attempt to raise his confidence. Fake it 'till you make it, goes the old quote. Even if he didn't believe in himself now, almost 4 months into training and still incapable of magic, he'd say he did until he actually did.
It helped that he felt a lot better about everything he'd improved upon in that time. He could actually win a few games of freerunning horse every now and then, he was significantly faster while sculpting and made significantly better looking sculptures - even if he still saw how he could improve - and learning the mundane aspects of potioneering was going well.
While nowhere near the top of the world - he was only a couple emergencies away from needing to get a job to survive and take away from his time to train - he thought everything was going pretty well, considering the circumstances the entire planet found itself in.